2011/12 NBA Regular Season
	@
12-2		1-12
January 18, 2012
Verizon Center
7 PM
CSN
Starters:
Russell Westbrook	PG	John Wall
Thabo Sefolosha	SG	Nick Young
Kevin Durant	SF	Chris Singleton
Serge Ibaka	PF	Andray Blatche
Kendrick Perkins	C	JaVale McGee
PREGAME READING: Meet the Thunder | Welcome To Loud City | SB Nation D.C.. | SB Nation Kansas City

Couple pregame notes (refreshing and constantly updating):

• Andray Blatche will start tonight for Trevor Booker. Flip Saunders, explaining himself: "Last game that we played against Houston, I thought he had good energy. I thought he gave us sustained energy for the time he was on the floor."
• Flip said Booker will still play a lot, but added, "when we put Booker in the starting lineup, we've gotten to sense that he he's had to play against so many big guys that it's worn him down a bit, playing as many minutes as he has. So we're going to bring him off to play against [Kevin] Durant and bring him off to play against the other people on their second line."
• Thought this was interesting: Flip said that "there's no question" that a shortened training camp hurt the Wizards, because "we had so many young guys who hadn't played together."
• I asked Flip about Chris Singleton guarding Durant. He said Singleton "has a tendency to reach a lot" on defense, and he needs to curb that going against Durant, who draws so many fouls.
• Flip was asked about the JaVale McGee dunk fallout. "It's a learning experience. I believe this: I don't think he did it in a malicious way, and I told him that. I said that for future use, those are just things where, given the situation we're in, you don't want to draw attention to something like that."
• Speaking of that, I missed this because I was here writing, but apparently the Thunder players in the locker room couldn't stop laughing at the dunk.

GO WIZARDS!